A Little Hope
Ratings8
Average rating3.3
A Read with Jenna Bonus Selection An “immersive…illuminating” (Booklist) and life-affirming novel following the residents of an idyllic Connecticut town over the course of a year, A Little Hope explores the intertwining lives of a dozen neighbors as they confront everyday desires and fears: a lost love, a stalled career, an illness, and a betrayal. Freddie and Greg Tyler seem to have it all: a comfortable home, a beautiful young daughter, a bond that feels unbreakable. But when Greg is diagnosed with a rare and aggressive form of cancer, the sense of certainty they once knew evaporates. Throughout their town, friends and neighbors face the most difficult of life’s challenges and are figuring out how to survive thanks to love, grace, and hope. “A quietly powerful portrait of small-town life…told with wisdom and tenderness” (Mary Beth Keane, author of Ask Again, Yes) A Little Hope is a deeply resonant debut that immerses the reader in a community and celebrates the importance of small moments of connection.
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I wanted to love this book, but it wasn't as ‘for me' as I'd expected. I love character-driven novels, which is how it's been described, but I struggled to connect to any one character - just as I was starting to get really invested, we jumped to the perspective of another. And while the characters' lives were interconnected, with 12+ of them, we really could only get snapshots. It felt like we were scraping the surface - of important moments, certainly, but fleeting ones - and I craved more depth and less variety. Because of that, I enjoyed the second half - once we'd finally met the entire cast of characters - far more than the first.
I think this is intentional on Joella's part - the jacket copy says, “A Little Hope celebrates the importance of small moments of connection” - so maybe this is a case of expectations setting me up for disappointment! With that goal in mind, though, I wonder if I would have preferred this as a series of interconnected short stories/vignettes rather than a novel.
I found the writing itself to be generally solid, with a few moments of clunkiness that jarred me out of the story. I did like the ending.
4.75 stars
This was just a good story. I think a lot of books that I tend to read are very dark or very deep and this was like a breath of fresh air. Don't get me wrong, this book had its heartache and flawed characters. I don't think I would have enjoyed it as much if there wasn't. However, it wasn't hard to read. You got to learn about all of the different characters and how they were interconnected through an ongoing timeline. A week or a couple months could have gone by between one person's story and the next. And each one gave you a brief glimpse into some of the other characters stories. I very much enjoyed the writing style as well.
Overall, it was a quiet book that showed the things that people struggle with daily and how the ways people struggle are all different. What you see or perceive of others is not always the way they feel or perceive themselves. For that sake, I gave it more stars than I would otherwise. The pain, joy, love, friendships, romances, and everything in between that all of us have throughout our days and life were covered in a muted way. There wasn't a lot of drama, or characters that you couldn't love or that you loved too much and were too perfect. It was just a nice, muted story of humanity, in my opinion. Very much enjoyed.
I wanted to read this as soon as I finished Joella's more recent (second) book, but this one didn't grab me by the first couple of chapters. They were quite sad, and I needed something different, so I stopped. I may come back. He gets his characters, and I appreciate the author's compassion.
